Hundreds of staff at offices of Zurich Financial Services are to lose their jobs.

A total of 750 redundancies are to be made, split between offices in Swindon and Cheltenham.

The job losses are the latest stage of 2,000 cuts across the UK announced in September by Europe's third largest insurer.

The losses are in the information technology sector and the customer services division and are designed to claw back half yearly losses of �1.3bn.

The redundancies will be phased through 2003 Zurich spokesman

For the past three months the company has been conducting a review of staffing, and the latest revelations come a week after a further 30 staff at the Swindon site were told their jobs would go.

A spokesperson for the firm said it was consulting the union of finance staff and the company's own employee forum about the changes.

"The redundancies will be phased through 2003," he said.

Substantial increase

In September, Zurich said 4,500 jobs would go this year, and underperforming businesses would be disposed of, to try to achieve savings of $1bn by the end of 2002.

Zurich's new internet bank - Zurich Bank - will close next spring.

The company said customers would be paid at least �200 compensation and their accounts would be transferred to other banks.

In the UK, Zurich Financial is best known for its sponsorship of club rugby, as well as being the firm behind insurers Eagle Star and Allied Dunbar.

The firm slumped to a net loss of $2.03bn in the first six months of this year, from the $861m profit recorded a year earlier, mainly because of write-offs and a substantial increase in provisions for poor performance.